A Cairo court on Saturday set July 2nd for the opening of the retrial of 50 men accused of having gay sex, a judicial source said.

The accused, mostly in their early 20s, will appear before a misdemeanors court in the Egyptian capital of Cairo charged with "practicing debauchery with men," the source said.

The state security court last November sentenced 20 of the men to two years in prison, one to one year, and acquitted the 29 others, according to AFP.

However, President Hosni Mubarak in May ordered their retrial saying the case did not fall under the jurisdiction of the state security court.

Mubarak however upheld the jail terms the state security court handed down to two other defendants in the same case.

One of them, Sherif Farahat, the leading defendant, was sentenced to five years in prison for "scorning religion" and "sexual practices contrary to Islam." The other, Mahmud Ahmed Allam, was jailed for three years for "scorning religion."

The group was reportedly arrested following a Nile riverboat nightclub cruise in May of 2001, but several defendants said they were detained outside.

Their last trial stirred the wrath of Western gay rights and human rights organizations. It should be noted that homosexuality is not explicitly prohibited under Egyptian law, which is based on sharia, or Islamic, rulings, although numerous statutes condemn conduct deemed to be an affront to public morality. (Albawaba.com)